*** cycles tell me XTR is discontinued!

I order a chainset this morning, email confirms order. Later in day they ramp up the price and email me telling me that the XTR M970 is out of stock and discontinued, would I like a refund? er no, I want a chainset for the price I first paid £234.99.

But how should I word this?

are they listing M970s on their site anymore?

M970 is discontinued, it was replaced by M975. Bit shabby of them not to update their stocks page though.

they have it on web site still

Phone up and ask if they have any M970 in stock. When they say yes, then say that they should honour the purchase price agreed for the same product (that clearly wasnt a mistake) this morning.

now, Im not 100% of the rules of offers to treat and contract with online shops etc, so they may have a legal get out, but a good dragging of their name through the STW mud should follow if they dont have a bloody good explanation.

I thought chainsets were still M970, kit around it M975. Google M975 chainset and nothing comes up. So the discontinued line IMO is pants. Know any better?

Why not get a different crankset that is just as good for less than half the price?

go on then glenh, which one is “just as good” (i.e. 750g and stiff as…) at half the price? Or do you ride an apollo? Afterall, its probably just as good an a fraction of the price…

“I order a chainset this morning, email confirms order. Later in day they ramp up the price and email me telling me that the XTR M970 is out of stock and discontinued, would I like a refund? er no, I want a chainset for the price I first paid £234.99.

But how should I word this?”

You have a confirmation email of the order and you have another email saying it’s out of stock and discontinued. And yet it’s still on the site but the price has gone up £65.
I’d say you have a good case for trading standards.
However I’d try to speak to someone and explain this to them first. Be polite. Ask them to honour the order you made.
Better still, if you are near them then pop in with the emails printed off.

Come on, £235 is a ridiculous amount for a crankset, never mind £300!

They don’t have to honor the sale, they can decide not to sell you it at any point and there’s nothing you can do. Every shop has the right to refuse sale of goods rather than take a loss.

Not if they’ve confirmed the order and taken payment IIRC.

This is down to them thinking they can profit more before the Shimano rises come into effect for them.

I bought a M970 chainset this morning from my LBS, I didn’t really need it but as the price of an outer ring has just gone up to £169.64 I think it was worth it just to use as spares. The current RRP for a XTR M970 chainset is £430.

Might be worth pointing out the following in their own T&Cs.

2. APPLICABLE TERMS: Unless otherwise agreed in writing, any contract for the sale of Goods shall be subject to the Conditions. Any oral or written terms offered or stipulated by the Purchaser shall, if inconsistent with the Conditions, be deemed rejected by the Company. No contract is made with the Company until there has been an acceptance in writing of an order placed by the Purchaser.

I presume a confirmation email constitutes written acceptance, does it say anything about that on the email?

8. TITLE: Notwithstanding delivery and the passing of risk in the Goods, title to and ownership of the Goods shall not pass to the Purchaser until the Company has received in cash or cleared funds payment in full of the price of the Goods and all sums payable to the Company under any other agreement with the Purchaser or any other delivery or instalment has been paid. (The PAYMENT DATE).

email reads
Hello

Unfortunately the Shimano XTR FC-M970 22/32/44 HollowTech II Chainset :

recently included in your order is out of stock and has been discontinued.

I apologise for this obvious stock control error.

Would you like a refund for this item or to choose an alternative?

The rest of your goods are on standby.

Awaiting your reply;

Now, I have no other goods, so I hope they have bounced back a generic email, hoping I will automatically go for the refund.
Yes funds have been taken.

“price of an outer ring has just gone up to £169.64”

WHAT!!!!!

I heard that all Shimano prices were going up 20% at the end of the month, seems they might have jumped the gun??

But I was off before the gun went!
ordered, email confirms order, money taken, then an email… dear John.
We seem to er…. run out of them and er……. got no more so er……can I offer a refund?
Web site says they have them in. Good advice though, will try a combination of the above.

That really is stupid money. £170 just for a chainring? Jeez

Dibbs if you dont want/need the arms let me know 🙂

So far this month I have turned down a £180 crossmax slx wheel set and a £360 20mm 09 Revelation fork. All of which are now £100’s more.

M970 still available according to the UK importer.
XTR M970 chainset
XTR middle ring (£122.33)
XTR outer ring (£166.37)

Yeah XTR is still available, however if a website is advertising it at £230 even £299 then its more than likely to good to be true, when the retail stands at £430! Much like every other item thats advertised at an extremely cheap price on the net!

Or its just an error on there part; in which case instead of being a cock about it, accept a refund and accept that sometimes mistakes are made! Unless youve never done anything wrong in your puff, in which case carry on.

all the xtr stuff’s still at a good price at stif.co.uk – i just got a whole drivetrain off them, includes 15% discount when you spend over £150 so you can get killer deal before prices go crazy.

It may aswell be discontinued,given ita new price.

xtr right hand shifter today, jejames £58, you lot are mugs and your bike shops are taking the piss.

word to that. schwimoid, you’re a retailers dream customer – “it’s too good to be true if the prices are cheap, so i’ll pay double just to be on the safe side!”

Are you kidding me? £300 for a crankset? Are you mental?

Oh, I am a store manager, and no, if they don’t want to sell you the stuff, I’d just forget it, they won’t have to. They can just say they haven’t got any and it was a mistake. They have offered you a refund straighaway and apologised, so thats pretty good.

Consider it a reprieve from your temporary madness….. 🙂

Anybody who thinks bike shops are taking the piss we don’t like this as much as you, the scale of the rises was never revealed to us, if I had known I would have ploughed some money into Shimano stock.

Margins on some Shimano have been reduced even though the retail has risen dramatically.

There will still be alot of shops with old stock kicking around, that would explain the price difference.

Back to the OP however it seems to me that the chainset has just risen in price, I personally think this is taking the mick somewhat, I’d suggest speaking to trading standards.

I personally think this is taking the mick somewhat, I’d suggest speaking to trading standards.

What’s that going to do?
They still don’t have to sell you the chainset, it isn’t going to happen. All TS officers do is contact the store, by phone or in person, explain the situation and see how you have acted. The shop will say “sorry we ran out, it’s a stock error” and that’ll be ok. They offered the refund or something else and apologised.
If it realy bothers you that much just go and shop somewhere else, that will hurt them much more (especially the amounts you seem to be spending!!) than a friendly visit from TS’s.

BTW, discontinued may just mean they have discontinued selling it.

Agreed TS can’t make sjs sell at that price, however,

Offences

If the seller is in business (rather than a private seller), he may have committed a criminal offence if he:

advertises a misleading price;

That’s the way I see it.

Its a very difficult situation and as Ziggy says – the shops arent enjoying it either.

Were having to cope with prices rises on various products almost daily now – many of which we arent informed about until we go to order the product. The first shimano price rise from Madison we were informed of about 2 weeks in advance. The latest one which happened late on Saturday we didnt even have wind of (perhaps because of its scale to stop mass stocking in at the lower prices – i certainly would have, and have with companys who have let us know when prices are going up and what too i.e mojo on 1st feb).

Im in similar position from the other side. On saturday I quoted and took a deposit a custom build running full XT price matched to CRC – usually never a problem at all. Checked all cost prices and it was fine to do. First i heard of any new rises was at Core on Sunday night but didnt really take much notice. Came back on monday to order the stuff i needed to find it had all gone up.

Luckily had a decent amount of the kit i needed in stock already, but even with that and the leeway on the other prices were barely breaking even on the build – but managed to maintain the price for the customer.

Its a real problem, even worse online, can only suggest in the coming months for anyone after slx/xt/xtr to find the cheapest price, phone and check availibility and go from there, otherwise this problem is going to crop up more and more.

Were having to cope with prices rises on various products almost daily now

you make it sound like Zimbabwe! 🙂

were barely breaking even on the build – but managed to maintain the price for the customer.

it’s commendable that you think that way – plenty of shysters in the market place who wouldnt.

Stome me! £160 for a chainring? Sod that.

So glad I use Deore rings, which work jut as well…. 😉

Having said that I needed a new middle ring and I’ve heard they are virtually doubling in price, so I bought 2 instead, for under £15…

You could just get it from merlin? £259.99

Always good service!

Some people really have too much money.

Or not enough brain.

Theflatboy – i am the retailer.

SQ225917 – you clearly have no idea what your talking about “and your bike shops are taking the piss”, so a retailers ment to buy in a product from the distributor and retail it out at a price that probably doesnt even cover the cost with VAT ontop, just to compete with the internet and to keep money grabbing punters happy. All while rent, rates, wages, tax, vat has to get paid with might i add no discount (bar a measly 2.13% off vat) in any way shape or form just to keep the doors open!

The price increases are killer. At a time when small LBSs are struggling anyway, it’s the last thing we want. Still, I managed to buy reasonable quantities before the hit, so price increases won’t hit my customers for a while. Details in profile if i can be of any help 😉